Page 59 - Studio International - April 1967

Painting No 9 1961, Oil on canvas, 60 x 60 in.

The structures of

Malcolm Hughes

Recent work by Malcolm Hughes is on
exhibition at Axiom Gallery, London,
this April.

Norbert Lynton

Blue and Aluminium 1964, Aluminium, polyvinyl and plywood 78 x 78 in.
The logic that hindsight gratefully discovers in an Malcolm Hughes's work, seen retrospectively aluminium (like that in the Tate) and occasionally
artist's development rarely played any part in its over the six years during which I have known it, in dark grey and aluminium. The new structures
achieving. Each creative act is the outcome of yields readily to logical dressage of this kind. The are in white paint plus aluminium, or greys and
decisions and recognitions too complex and inter- changes it has undergone seem to imply a direc- aluminium; in his latest prints Hughes has been
mingled to be analysed, and each leaves the artist tion, yet to see his work merely as steps on the experimenting with colour on the formal themes
with a spectrum of old and new possibilities. road to the most recent instance or beyond would of the structures so that we may expect to see
Again he must choose, and whether his choice will be to blind oneself to its quality and to do a colour being brought to bear on them too.
subsequently appear logical is something he cannot particularly brutal kind of injustice to Hughes and So although the format of the work has changed
know. Only the man with a specific goal in sight to the strange business of artistic creation. radically, and although the formal constituents
can pre-plan his route and I know of no significant At the same time the fact that his work can be have changed too—from very flat taut areas,
example of that in art. It is we who can find pre- seen as a progression, more purposeful and un- tensed by their outlines and by their colour quality
echoes of Neo-Plasticism in Mondrian's early land- deviating than most, does tell us something. It within the edge-contour of the picture, to nearly
scapes, or elements of Cubism in the Desmoiselles suggests that Hughes's personality is that of one geometrical forms, shaped to fit against each other
d'Avignon, not their authors at the time of production. for whom the first step counts greatly, and who, but disrupted to produce the ambiguous relation-
Yet discovering this kind of logic is a habit dear having taken it, proceeds perseveringly. He does ship Hughes wanted, and now to what is almost a
to the historian and the critic, and welcomed by not turn back or stop going. It also implies an child's building-brick idiom of squares and
his audience. Perhaps finding it implies a successful important common factor, fundamental enough to parallelograms—there are elements at all levels
act of imaginative thinking on his part—a com- stabilize activity over years. that have been carried through the development
plementary creative, so to speak, to that of the The first works I saw were paintings. Recently he and that have carried the development through.
artist. A less encouraging explanation may be that has been making assembled constructions of wood The most important of these is the one most likely
a pattern of apparent logic is comforting to an age and canvas or aluminium that protrude from the to be taken for granted or to be overlooked. All of
that sees no very clear purpose for art and would wall, are beginning to occupy floor as well as wall Hughes's work is visual, in method and in func-
prefer to imagine studios as laboratory workshops space, and are likely soon to become free-standing tion. The same essentially visual ambitions that
rather than secret places lit by occasional flashes of objects. In between come the pictures I will refer determined the membranes of colour and tone in
inspiration. The chief practical justification for it to as painting reliefs, in which areas of paint and the paintings and found the just line between each
must be that it helps us to a clear, even if over- areas of aluminium are correlated within the and its neighbour, have gone on to measure and
simplified and diminished, view of a man's work. confines of a box frame. The paintings had been in adjust the contours, dimensions, tone, mattness or
Our only defence against it is to recognize it for black and white or in rather firm, austere colours. polish of metal in the painting reliefs, and the
what it is. The painting reliefs were mostly in white and scale, relationships of plane, interaction of tones,